A smart card is a card made from plastic or other suitable material that comprises some degree of processing capability. Typically, smart cards may be programmed to perform a wide variety of functions. For example, a single smart card may be programmed to open doors as a key, store medical information, and serve as an electronic credit card. A single smart card therefore has the potential to replace many of the items that people carry and use in their day-to-day lives.
Although widespread adoption of smart card technology promises great benefits, many individuals remain hesitant about using smart cards because of security concerns. For example, if the smart card just described is lost, the card's finder might use the card to gain access to the card owner's home or to improperly charge purchases against the card owner's credit account.
It has therefore been suggested to combine the use of smart cards with a biometric test in order to confirm that the person using the card is, in fact, an authorized user such as the card owner. Specifically, it has been suggested to provide fingerprint-reading-and-comparison apparatus to compare the fingerprint of an individual presenting a smart card to a stored fingerprint on the smart card, in order to ensure that the person presenting the card is authorized to do so. Such a biometric system was used, for example, at EXPO'92 in Spain, as described in "Smart Cards" by Jose Luis Zoreda et al. (Artech House, Inc., 1994), which is hereby incorporated by reference.
As Zoreda et al. note, however, this prior art technique may be subject to consumer rejection especially in countries where fingerprint information is typically collected only from criminals. More specifically, individuals may be hesitant to employ a biometric system that collects and stores their fingerprint information.